Nickolas Lee

Photograph of Nickolas Lee, obtained from Cassandra Greer-Lee on Facebook. 

Nickolas Lee passed away on April 12th, 2020 at the age of 42. A lifelong Chicago resident who loved his family and loved to cook, he is survived by his wife of four years, Cassandra Greer-Lee. 

Cassandra met Nickolas at the age of seventeen. Though she wasn’t technically allowed to date, she found herself drawn to his sense of humor and infectious personality. The two young adults stayed in touch as Cassandra moved away to pursue a burgeoning career in education, while Nickolas remained in Chicago to operate a car wash. When Cassandra came back to the South Side several years later, they decided to get married.

Photograph of thousands of paper cranes folded by Japanese-American activists to show support for incarcerated individuals who have died of COVID-19 at Cook County Jail, courtesy of Katherine Nagasawa, by way of NPR.

Even when he was incarcerated, Nickolas was his wife’s “number one supporter.” Cassandra recalls that he would call her every day, both in the morning and when she came back from work. “When I would come home with my lesson plans, he’d be on the phone giving me little ideas for the children that I teach,” she told Sarah Conway of CITY Bureau.

Portrait of Nickolas Lee by Mourning Our Losses volunteer RLP

After the pandemic struck, Nickolas and Cassandra’s daily conversations shifted to their concerns about the coronavirus. Wearing a t-shirt as a makeshift mask and wrapping another around the shared jail phone, Nickolas told his wife about two men in his dormitory who had come down with COVID-like symptoms. When it became clear that the correctional officers at Cook County Jail weren’t going to protect her husband, Cassandra decided to take matters into her own hands. She began calling multiple times a day to ask for her husband to be provided with adequate PPE and moved to a different dorm, often receiving no response on the other end. In total, she made 132 calls.

Cassandra speaks at MOL’s vigil to mark one year since the first death from Covid behind bars.

Still, Cassandra’s efforts weren’t enough to save him. After developing a sore throat on March 29th, Nickolas’ condition deteriorated to the point where he could no longer walk. He was hospitalized at Stroger Hospital on April 6th and passed away five days later. 

As journalists and activists began investigating the circumstances surrounding Nickolas’s death, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office released a statement denying any wrongdoing. “We have and continue to maximize social distancing, cleaning supplies and personal hygiene for detainees in accordance with the CDC,” they stated. “Nothing that happened today suggests otherwise.”

Yet Cassandra believes that the Sheriff’s Office is absolutely responsible for her husband’s death. She notes that the jail did not provide masks for incarcerated individuals until three people had passed away from the virus, with her husband being the third. Since then, she has spent countless afternoons protesting and demanding accountability in front of Cook County Jail. “I can’t let this happen to another family,” she said. “That’s why I’m fighting every day.”

Cassandra recalls that one of Nickolas’s favorite ways to spend his Sunday mornings was to watch the sunrise from the docks of the South Side. “He saw how peaceful it was and how the sun beams when it comes up off the water, almost as if it [were] arising from the water itself,” she said. Because of the pandemic, Nickolas is no longer able to experience the quiet splendor of a sunrise. But one can imagine his spirit at peace when he sees his wife alongside other activists at Cook County Jail, marching towards a new day where justice will be served.

Photograph of the La Rabida waterfront on Chicago’s South Shore, where Nickolas and Cassandra watched the sunrise, obtained from Google Maps.

This memorial was written by MOL team member Mirilla Zhu with information from an interview by Sarah Conway of CITY Bureau with Cassandra Greer-Lee and reporting from Chuck Goudie of ABC 7 Chicago and Andy Grimm of the Chicago Sun-Times.